Sunday, November 29, 2015

Have the movers and shakers (AIJAC, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies) behind the rambamming of Australian journalists now decided, in the wake of the Sharri Markson affair,* that the rambammed should launch a propaganda offensive immediately upon their return, if not sooner?

This line of thought has been prompted by the sudden appearance of a rash of propaganda pieces by the most recently rambammed:

"On a recent Thursday a 23-year-old man shot in the arm by a sniper while driving joked around with five other Syrians packed into a narrow ward...The man - whose name the hospital asked me not to publish - couldn't bring himself to praise his protector. But he appeared very happy to be safe. 'Bashar Al-Assad told us all that Israel is the enemy,' he said."

The 'hospital' of course is Israel's Ziv Hospital, where mysterious Syrians, such as the gent above, show up for some of that world famous Israeli TLC before being packed off to resume whatever it was they were doing before being touched by the healing hands of Israeli angels.

But what interests me more is the highlighted utterance above. Despite the 1967 war in which Israel took the Syrian Golan Heights and which it continues to illegally occupy to this day, this mysterious Syrian, hailing from somewhere adjacent to the GH, apparently had to be told by Bashar al-Asad (What, personally?) that 'Israel is the enemy'? Seriously?

"The trips have attained almost legendary status in media circles."

What the hell does this mean?

Colleague: Just back from Israel, mate?Aaron: Yep.Colleague: You're a legend, mate.

"The care of these wounded is a potent symbol for the Middle East's first democracy. There are no Ziv hospitals outside Israel."

Oh really? What about this hospital in Turkey then?:

"Every day for the last 4 years, Mr Gharib has risen early to check his phone for the injured and dead. Now based in Reyhanli, just across the border from the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, he says the local hospital receives at least 60 seriously injured patients each day from Syria. How many are there today, I ask? He gets out his phone and counts: 17. And it is only midday." (Syrians crushed by clashing titans, Ruth Pollard, Sydney Morning Herald, 28/11/15)

Now Aaron informs us that Ziv has treated 550 injured Syrians since February 2013. So how many has Reyhanli treated since then without any fanfare or media cheer squads? Extrapolating from the above figure of 60 per day for Turkey's Reyhanli Hospital over the period 2013-2015 that comes to potentially 65,700 seriously injured Syrians treated.

More like there's no Reyhanli Hospital inside Israel!

And so to the matter of "the Middle East's first democracy," here's Israeli democracy101 just for Aaron:

1. From 1917-1948 the Zionist movement opposed representative government in majority Arab British Mandate Palestine because it would have led to a majority Arab (Muslim/Christian) government.

2. In 1948, after Zionist terror gangs (Irgun, Stern Gang, Haganah) had reduced the Arab majority to a minority by ethnically cleansing 78% of Palestine, lo and behold and surprise, surprise, Israel emerged as a Jewish democracy.

"The Israel-Palestine conflict is one of the greatest battles for global public opinion in history."

Yeah? Well, Aaron, has that prompted you to pick and read one, just one, only one, book on the subject? No? I thought not. Journalists these days...

"We received briefings... from a member of the Jewish settler movement.."

David Wilder, spokesman of the Jewish settlers in Hebron? - "He presents us with a context-free history of the Jewish people that is a complicated mixture of half truths, outright lies, and racist paranoia." (A meeting with the spokesman of the Jewish settlers in Hebron, Alice Rothschild, mondoweiss.net, 24/10/12)

And you swallowed it, hook, line and sinker?

"Ruined Syria is barely a threat to Israel any more. The main danger is internal, from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where 1.8 million resentful Palestinians wait for their own nation."

Wait a minute! Israel has occupied, colonised and fucked over the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for 48 years... but the Palestinians are the problem?!

"The status quo favours Israel..."

Aaron, mate, did you really have to go all the way to Israel to learn that the status quo favours the colonisers over the colonised?

"To impose a cost on the people that see as their occupiers, Palestinians attack, relentlessly."

Oh, so it's all in their minds, is it?

"'Why are they making us kill them?' said Sarit Zehavi, an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve. 'We don't want to kill them.'"

OMFG, Aaron, you can't see through this crap?!

"Palestinian culture celebrates the violence."

It's called resistance, Aaron. You expect them to celebrate their occupiers and colonisers?

"Nour Odeh, a former journalist and spokeswoman for the Palestinian authorities [sic]... essentially made a Marxist critique of Israeli policies, which she argues impose settlements on the West Bank to make life miserable for Palestinians and profits for settlers. 'This is not a housing issue,' she said. 'This is a colonial issue.'"

So, Aaron, pointing out that that the occupied and colonised Palestinians are, well, occupied and colonised makes one a Marxist? Maybe you should be writing for the Murdoch press?

Friday, November 27, 2015

I notice that the Sydney Morning Herald columnist Elizabeth Farrelly has been seduced by M'Lord Turnbull.

He's "intelligent," she says. He can talk to us as though we're "functioning adults." Hence, she ventures to predict, he's going to be Australia's "longest-serving prime minister since Menzies. Possibly ever." (Malcolm is here for the long haul, 26/11/15)

Talk about easily pleased.

Now I get where she's coming from.

M'Lord Turnbull's not Tony Abbott. He lacks the simian gait. He doesn't wink, and his ears don't stick out. But can't she see it's substance, not style, we need?

Frankly, I don't give a rats whether he's intelligent (whatever that means) or has a way with words. All I ask of a leader - or a columnist, or anyone else for that matter - is intellectual and moral courage.

So how do we test for that? Simple. As the Singaporean writer and thinker Kishore Mahbubani once observed:

"There is always a litmus test to assess a person's intellectual and moral courage. In the West... this litmus test is provided by the issue of Palestine."

I'm afraid M'Lord Turnbull has been failing the Palestine test all his life.

In fact, he's just failed it 5 times in a row, as our most recent voting pattern on Palestine in the UN General Assembly indicates:

Committee on the the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian people (A/70/L 10): "Requests the Committee to continue to exert all efforts to promote the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self determination, to support the achievement without delay of an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and of the two-State solution on the basis of the pre-1967 borders..." 102 in favor, 8 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau), and 57 abstentions

Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat (A/70/L 11): "Considers that, by providing substantive support to the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in the implementation of its mandate, the Division for Palestinian Rights of the Secretariat continues to make a most useful and constructive contribution to raising international awareness of the question of Palestine..." 99 in favor, 8 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau), and 59 abstentions

Special information programme on the question of Palestine of the Department of Public Information of the secretariat (A/70/L 12): "Considers that the special information programme on the question of Palestine of the Department is very useful in raising the awareness of the international community concerning the question of Palestine..." 155 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau), and 7 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Honduras, Papua & New Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Tonga)

Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine (A/70/L 13): "Expressing grave concern about the extremely detrimental impact of Israeli settlement policies, decisions and activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, including on the contiguity, integrity and viability of the Territory..." 155 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Australia, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau), and 7 abstentions (Cameroon, Honduras, Nauru, Paraguay, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga)

Jerusalem (A/70/L 14): "Reiterates its determination that any actions taken by Israel, the Occupying Power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever, and calls upon Israel to immediately cease all such illegal and unilateral measures." 153 in favor, 7 against (Israel, United States, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau), and 8 abstentions (Australia, Cameroon, Panama, Papua & new Guinea, Paraguay, South Sudan, Toga, Tonga)

Thursday, November 26, 2015

"According to reports out of the Syrian media, Israeli warplanes launched four airstrikes against a Hezbollah base in western Syria, along the Lebanon border, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens of others. The report identified the slain as 8 Hezbollah fighters and 5 Syrian soldiers. No reason was given for the attack and, as with several previous Israeli attacks on Syria, there has been no formal statement from the Israeli military confirming the incident, let alone explaining it." (Report: Israeli airstrikes kill 13 along Syria-Lebanon border, Jason Ditz, antiwar.com, 24/11/15)

On the same page, barely before the blood had dried and the dust settled, Greg Sheridan, the rag's foreign editor, was busy speculating about who the perpetrators were, with most of his guessing game focusing on Thai Muslim separatists from the southern state of Pattani.

But, and here's the thing, Sheridan's not the one to merely canvass the possibilities. He's got an ideological axe to grind - a bloody great Zionist one. It was given to him as a child by his Auntie Poppy, who, according to Sheridan, "always told me I must never forget that the Jews were God's chosen people." (See my 3/8/15 post, Greg Sheridan: the Making of a Gentile Zionist.)

The problem with Sheridan is that he's never recovered from that kind of indoctrination.

Which explains the insertion in his piece of the following, beyond gratuitous, bullshit:

"Southeast Asian and Western intelligence agencies have long been waiting for the separatists to bring their struggle to Bangkok. At the same time, intelligence agencies know that other terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, have established an infrastructure in Bangkok." (Blaming rivals too neat and easy)

Now, here's the latest on the incident:

"A military court in Bangkok has indicted two men accused of carrying out the deadly bombing at a Bangkok shrine that left 20 people dead and more than 120 injured. The two, identified as Bilal Mohammad and Mieraili Yusufu, were indicted on Tuesday on 10 charges connected to the August 17 blast at the Erawan shrine. Thai officials have said the blast was revenge by a people-smuggling network against Thai authorities for breaking up their operation." (Bangkok bombing: court indicts Bilal Mohammad and Mieraili Yusufu, Associated Press, 24/11/15)

Not that that will detain "the most influential foreign affairs analyst in Australian journalism" - which is how Sheridan is amusingly described on The Australian's website.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

"Outrageously, in two interviews in Ramallah, Palestinian officials justified the terror attacks against Israelis," (20/11/15)

... before referring her adoring readers to her 'report' on these blackguards:

"Palestinian government officials have justified violence in Israel, arguing the attacks are committed in the 'national' cause because Palestinians 'have lost hope.' The officials told The Weekend Australian the Palestinian community celebrated as martyrs those who committed attacks on Israelis. In interviews from the Palestinian city of Ramallah... Palestine Liberation Organisation spokesman Xavier Abu Eid said recent stabbing attacks were a reaction from the Palestinian people who had lost hope because of their living conditions.'Our people have been living under denied rights for decades so when someone goes out as a consequence of having lost hope, you don't have to read the Koran to do it,' he said. 'You cannot just kill hopes in the minds of people and expect these people not to react. Those people have been denied their basic rights and then you tell me they go to stab someone because of religion?" (Palestinian violence is 'in the national cause', The Australian, 21/11/15)

Fair enough, Xavier, but I would've adopted a more Socratic approach with the wee lassie:

"If little Sharri-pops is a 'journalist' then I'm a Kardashian," tweeted Mike Carlton in response to the above revelation. (23/11/15)

"... was detained by Israeli security officials in tense scenes last week during a visit to a hospital treating victims of the Syrian civil war."

Oh yes, that hospital. Ziv. Strange place, Ziv.

Must be the only 'hospital' in the Western world that patches up 'Syrian' jihadis and doubles as as a pilgrimage centre for rambamming foreign politicians and journalists experiencing the joy of Israeli apartheid.

"Sharri Markson, a senior writer at The Australian..."

Sharri-pops has had an interesting career trajectory: Cleo>Media Editor of The Australian>Senior writer - whatever that is - at The Australian. She first came to my attention for hercoverage of/revelry inMike Carlton's harassment by Fairfax management for speaking out against the Israeli cauldronisation of Gaza last year.

"... was detained for questioning by security officials at the Ziv Medical Centre in northern Israel on Thursday. Markson was travelling with other Australian journalists on a week-long study tour organised by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council."

Study tour? Pull the other! Remember my definition of the verb Rambam?: "To be sponsored by smooth-talking Israel lobbyists in Australia for a grooming session conducted by tough-talking PR people in Israel, with a view to the sponsored adopting the missionary position for Israel, when required, in Australia. Usually used in relation to Australian politicians, media hacks and other useful fools." (For those interested in just how widespread this practice is, see my 30/3/09 post I've been to Israel too.)

"... Markson became 'aggravated' during the 'tense' incident in which security officials demanded she hand over her passport, mobile phone and notes. 'It was very intense and dramatic, a source said. 'There was a major commotion and suddenly there was security everywhere.'"

"Over 500 Syrians - including wounded fighters battling the Assad regime - have been treated at the Ziv Medical Centre in Safed, near the Syrian border."

And thereby hangs a (sorry) tale. For the full story on the identity of those wounded fighters battling the Assad regime, see my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.

"In a briefing before the tour began, hospital staff told the journalists that the patients could be at risk upon their return to Syria if it became known they had sought treatment in Israel."

Funny how these guys just waltz across the border into Israel, are immediately picked up by waiting ambulances, whisked off to free medical care, patched up, and sent back to fight Asad. Anyone else trying to penetrate Israel's border would be shredded on the spot. Did it ever occur to Sharri-pops or any of her other rambammers to wonder thus. Rhetorical question, of course.

"The hospital uses elaborate methods to secretly transfer the patients in and out of Syria."

Check them out in my 12/12/14 post, A Side of Israel the World Too Rarely Acknowledges.

"The 8 journalists were instructed not to record the names of the patients or to take photos that could identify them."

8! Hands up all those Australian journalists who've been rambammed? My God there are a lot of you!

Now we know about Sharri-pop's mob - see below - but who were the other 4? According to Guardian Australia's Amanda Meade, they were: David Lipson, Sky News political reporter; and Aaron Patrick, print editor of the Australian Financial Review. (Sharri Markson: journalist at The Australian in run-in with Israeli security, 22/11/15)

That accounts for 6, so who were the other 2?

"Fairfax media understands that during the visit, Markson broke away from the other journalists to speak to the patients without supervision and exchanged contact details with them. This led to her being detained by security forces."

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies supremo, Vic Alhadeff, whose job it was to keep an eye on his charges, attempted to crash tackle Ms. Markson, but proved no match for Markson's Jimmy Choos as he sprawled on the hospital floor to the cheers of the convalescing jihadis. Before the hapless Alhadeff could get to his feet and splutter, 'For G-d's sake, Sharri, he's only after a sex slave,' Ms Markson had swapped email addresses with the hottest jihadi in the ward... and the rest is history.

"Fairfax media understands the incident was resolved following intervention by NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff. Mr Alhadeff, who has returned to Australia, said: 'In that regard, we are very mindful of not disclosing their identity. There was an unfortunate misunderstanding but the situation was quickly resolved'."

Too right you are!

"Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein, who was not on the trip, confirmed a 'kerfuffle' had occurred at the hospital. He said the council representative on the trip told him Markson 'took down the email address of a Syrian patient, security officials got wind of itand asked her about it on the way out. Most times it's very clear to all the participants what the guidelines are."

Although hardly any of them, it seems, are clear about The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance's guidelines/ Code of Ethics: "4. Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence."

"It's never been an issue before. The condition of visiting the hospital is to respect and maintain the confidentiality of the patients' identities. If anyone's identity was disclosed it would put them at great risk - it's a brutal part of the world."

Saturday, November 21, 2015

One minute he's, like, If only Muslims were more like, well, Christians:

"Islamists have been successful beyond their wildest dreams. Like the communists before them, but more successfully than the communists,* they have established a constituency for their basic paradigm amid a substantial number of people in Western societies and the Middle East. More than that, they share in common with many non-violent Muslims a great deal of a common narrative that focuses on resentment and paranoia." (The future of Western civilization is under threat, but not just from extremists, Greg Sheridan, The Australian, 21/11/15)

The next he's, like, If only (so-called) Christians were more like, well, Muslims:

"The West is undergoing a genuine civilisational crisis of belief and of governance. This is the first generation in Western history that, substantially, is not sustained by transcendent beliefs. The death of God is also in the West the death of purpose, and, for many, the death of meaning." (ibid)

Friday, November 20, 2015

"So some people don't like Optus's posters in Arabic ('Optus pulls Arabic ads after alleged threat', November 18). I have a message for them: 0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9. Those are Arabic numerals. They were brought back from the Middle East by the crusaders and quickly replaced old, unwieldy Roman numerals. So if you wish to object to signs and other messages printed in Arabic, I'm sorry. You're about a thousand years too late." Phillip Cohen Lake Munmorah (Sydney Morning Herald, 19/11/12)

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Sydney barrister and Sun-Herald columnist Charles Waterstreet, babbling about the "blonde-haired and olive-skinned progeny of Scandinavian and Syrian origins," who "might look attractive but... will feel like aliens in a land where The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was written," takes us BACK to the wilder shores of orientalist discourse:

"The ultra-right depicted in that series of books will not take kindly to the wiry, wily desert people washed up on their shores." (Hopelessness breeds the will to destroy, 15/11/15)

Amazing, innit? A Syrian refugee from Aleppo, a CITY which has been around for about 7,000 years, washes up in Stockholm, which has been around for about 700 years... with sand in his bloody shoes!

"Australia has done quite well considering the incipient loathing that must exist in our suburbs where young minds aretrained to recite a book by heart at night and by day study subjects that have little chance to provide employment." (ibid)

There you go - just in case you were wondering what the li'l Abduls of Bankstown got up to at night.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

It's simplicity itself. Just a matter of logistics and funding, really.

Here's what we do:

1) All Palestinian refugees driven out of Palestine in 1948 and 1967 by Zionist terrorists return to their homes and lands in Israel. We even have a perfectly serviceable UN General Assembly resolution, from 11 December, 1948, that's never been implemented, by way of sanction. It's called Resolution 194, and here are the key words:

"[UNGA] Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return..."

All it needs is to be implemented! End of Palestinian refugee problem!

2) Syrian refugees, currently in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Europe, move into the dwellings of Palestinian refugees departing Lebanon and Jordan for Israel, pending a political settlement in Syria.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Some "home truths" on the Islamic State phenomenon from Bruce Hearn Mackinnon (senior lecturer in the Department of Management at Deakin University) in yesterday's Age. While Mackinnon's opinion piece is inadequate in certain respects, it is probably the best commentary on the subject to have appeared thus far in the Australian ms press. Here's just the gist:

"First, the US and its allies armed, trained and supported Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organisation in its dirty war, first against the leftist government in Afghanistan, and then against the Soviet Union who intervened in a doomed attempt to prop up the collapsing regime, which was at war with the Islamists, backed by Pakistan. This ultimately led to the September 11 attacks on the US itself. The Taliban today continues to be trained, financed and supported by forces within the Pakistan security and military establishment.

"Second, the West's support for Israel in its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and its constant and growing humiliation of Palestinian people, has been a festering sore, breeding resentment, frustration anger not only from Palestinians but the wider Muslim community, particularly in the Arab world. As if this wasn't bad enough, let's not forget that Israel was also happy to secretly fund and encourage the terrorist organisation, Hamas, in its early years, as a means of undermining the secular mainstream PLO, led by Yasser Arafat.

"Third, the US (supported by Australia) invasion and destruction of Iraq, justified by the lie about (we now know, non-existent) weapons of mass destruction, resulting in about half a million deaths, was the direct catalyst for for the formation of the Islamic State terrorist organisation - whose current military leaders are former generals from saddam Hussein's then predominantly secular Baathist regime.

"Fourth, the West's eagerness to destroy the largely secular Gaddafi regime has left Libya as a failed state, allowing criminals and terrorists a free rein to engage in violence on a mass scale.

"Fifth, the West's support for violent opposition to the Assad regime in Syria has left his country in ruins and allowed Islamo-Fascism to become the military opposition. All the talk about supporting 'moderate' opposition forces has been exposed as a lie. Syria is in the grip of a full-on sectarian war between the Shia-backed regime and the Sunni extremists, including IS and al-Nusra (al-Qaida). The West's support for the opposition in Syria has taken the form of support for Islamo-Fascism on the ground in Syria.

"Finally, the Islamo-Fascist movement, whether operating in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Iraq or elsewhere, is known to have received financial, ideological, religious and military support from the West's key allies in the Middle East, the brutal Islamo-Fascist regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

"You reap what you sow." (After the Paris attacks: How to confront this Islamo-Fascist plague, 16/11/15)

Monday, November 16, 2015

Question: Why did the jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the attacks in Paris have it so damn easy?

Answer: Because there were no obstacles of any kind to obstruct them. Just your average civilian infrastructure: you know, streets, cafes, theatres, stadiums, what have you. Stroll in, stroll out:

"France has vowed a 'merciless' response to an unprecedented terrorist atrocity: six-co-ordinated attacks that stained Parisian streets with blood and left more than 120 people dead." (Paris attacks: France vows 'merciless' response to unprecedented atrocity, Nick Miller, The Sun-Herald, 15/11/15)

Question: Why did the same pack of jihadi mongrels who perpetrated the earlier attacks in Beirut have it so damn hard?

Answer: Well, they had to overcome a bastion, which is to say the projecting part of a fortification built at an angle to the line of a wall, so as to allow defensive fire in several directions, a structure that is part of a stronghold, which is a place that has been fortified to protect it against attack. Seriously:

"Lebanon was holding a day of mourning yesterday for 41 people killed in twin bombings... in southern Beirut... More than 200 people were also wounded... by the explosions... in the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood that is a bastion of the Shia Hezbollah movement... The attacks were the deadliest to hit a Hezbollah stronghold..." (Lebanon mourns bomb victims, AFP/The Australian, 14/11/15)

Now for all I know, whoever wrote that Agence France Presse piece, with its bastion and stronghold, could have been an IS operative. After all, look at how IS claimed responsibility for the Beirut blasts:

Happily, I think we can safely assume that Herald journalist, Ruth Pollard's no jihadi because she didn't use the term at all in her piece, except, of necessity, in the IS quote:

"Islamic State has claimed responsibility for twin suicide blasts in the southern Beirut area of Burj al-Barajneh that killed at least 41 and injured more than 200." (ibid)

See? Not a bastion or a stronghold anywhere in sight, just your common and garden area, you know, with streets and cafes and theatres and stadiums and the like.

Butjust remember, from now on, whenever you seea journalist usethe words stronghold or bastion in connection with an IS bombing in southern Beirut, it means that he/she isactually excusing what, if it occurred anywhere else, would be described as nothing less than a monstrous act of terrorism directed at innocent civilians. That, and sounding suspiciously like an IS propagandist.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

1) ISIS has gone on the offensive: in 10 days, they downed a Russian civilian airliner, massacred Hazara Shi'ites in Afghanistan, bombed the southern suburbs in Beirut and now Paris.

2) Western governments, the US and France in particular, along with their Saudi, Qatari and Turkish allies are directly responsible for the rise and expansion of ISIS through their policies in Syria, which have cradled and nurtured ISIS and its sister terrorist organizations.

3) There is no way on earth to stem the menace of ISIS and Al-Qa'idah-like organizations without going to their source in Saudi Arabia, which is the official headquarters of the Ibn Taymiyyah terrorist interpretation of Islam.

4) Ibn Taymiyyah* is the one thinker/theologian who has inspired and guided the thoughts and deeds of terrorists striking in the name of Islam.

5) Western governments AND media have been cynically silent about the victims of ISIS terrorism if the victims happen to be categorized as 'enemies.' Western governments AND media (just look at the dispatches from the New York Times and Washington Post over the last 4 years on Syria) have consistently ignored and even cheered sectarian massacres of Syrian and Lebanese civilians if they are perpetrated by foes of the Syrian regime.

6) Just as ISIS and Al-Qa'idah have brought terrorism to the heart of the West, Western governments have been exporting death and destruction to the Middle East and North Africa: from Mali to Libya to Egypt to Sudan to Somalia to Syria to Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan. Terrorism has been inflicted on people in those countries by ISIS and Al-Qaidah, and by the bombs and rockets and drones of Western governments.

7) All Arabs today have noticed something that cannot be ignored: how ISIS and Al-Qa'idah terrorists travel the world to inflict their terrorism but yet spare Israel and its interests. The relationship between the Zionist occupation entity and the Nusrah Front - the official branch of Al-Qa'idah in Syria - is no longer secret.**

8) ISIS cannot be defeated from the air as long as Western governments and their Gulf and Turkish allies assist it on the ground, directly or indirectly.

9) Just as Western powers created and nurtured the precursor of Al-Qa'idah in Afghanistan to defeat the communist regime there, those same powers have created and nurtured a deadly cocktail of the worst Middle Eastern terrorists ever in Syria in the hope that they would bring down the Syrian regime.

10) The story of ISIS terrorism began not only with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 but also with the creation of a vast safe haven for Islamist terrorism in Libya. Libya was the biggest gift to jihadi terrorism since the fall of the Taliban.

11) The US and France (along with the GCC countries) have been creating a culture of terrorism in the region by creating a terrorist haven in Syria in the name of fighting for 'democracy and secularism' - in the stupid language of John Kerry. They have done this by making dubious distinctions between various terrorists in Syria [and] through making allies of the Nusrah Front and its affiliates.

12) The myth of moderate Syrian rebels has to be discarded. The remnants of the Free Syrian Army are basically ISIS-in-waiting.

13) Western correspondents in Beirut in charge of covering the savage war in Syria are all guilty (with the exception of Patrick Cockburn) of misinforming and misguiding their leaders. They have been ignoring and JUSTIFYING the scores of car bombs and war crimes by Syrian rebels in Syria and Lebanon because they see them as fitting in with the struggle against the Syrian regime.

14) Western human rights organizations are also guilty of creating a culture of bogus human tights rhetoric which has belittled and even justified the war crimes of Syrian rebels (see the latest HRW report on the placing of Alawite women in cages).

15) French policy under the socialist government has even elevated its relationship with the Saudi and Qatari regimes - the two governments most responsible for sponsoring, financing and arming the cocktail of dangerous terrorists in Syria.

16) It is high time for Western governments to give up on their policies and wars in Syria, not to preserve the Syrian regime (as Iran and Russia would like), but to exclude from the future both sets of war criminals there.

17) I don't like Bashar Al-Asad one bit and I have wanted the overthrow of that regime since 1976 when its army invaded Lebanon and smashed my dreams of a progressive, leftist revolution in Lebanon, but who can now disagree with the warnings given by him 3 years ago that those terrorists that the West are now supporting would one day strike at the heart of Europe? Syrian regime supporters are today reprising those words and re-airing them.

18) The Saudi and Qatari regime media (Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya in particular, but others as well) have created a culture of terrorism in which crimes against civilians who happen to be Shi'ites or Alawites or Christians or Sunnis who happen to reside in 'regime-dominated areas of Syria' are justified on a daily basis. Just yesterday, for example, Saudi and Qatari regime media provided ample justification and rationalization for the crimes, and lionized the terrorists who perpetrated them. This culture of terrorism is responsible for the climate in which the crimes in Paris have taken place.

19) Western governments can't have it both ways; they can't continue to support Gulf regimes and arming them while claiming to want to fight terrorism.

20) US and Western governments and media are responsible for a culture of selective denunciations and condemnations: they are silent about the daily crimes committed by that key Western ally, the terrorist state of Israel, against Palestinians.

21) Arabs/Muslims can't reach an agreement against all manner of terrorism as long as Western governments and Arab regimes continue to be selective in condemning terrorism.

22) Western support for dictatorships in the Arab world is responsible in many ways for the creation of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

23) Terrorist groups in the Middle East have been used and misused by local regimes, Western powers and Israel for decades.

24) Yes, the Iraq invasion of 2003 has proven to be exactly what Jacques Chirac warned it would be: a dangerous Pandora's box.

25) Obama has really not deviated from the dangerous policies of Bush, and his expansion of wars in the Middle East has fueled ISIS.

26) The Islam of Arab regimes is a dangerous and conservative Islam. It cannot be changed by Western military commanders, but it can be changed by the people of the region if they are allowed to think freely and choose: but neither the West nor the Arab regimes want the Arabs to think freely. Al-Azhar University has become, through bribes, a tool of the Saudi Wahhabi regime.

27) It is not sectarian to declare Saudi Wahhabi doctrine as the official doctrine of jihadi terrorism. Wahhabiyeh is not a sect: it is a school of fanatical thought and terrorist practice.

28) How do Western powers fight ISIS? They foolishly rely on a royal buffoon in Jordan and on the UAE regime to engage in the promotion of a kinder Islam in social media. The fools in DC who think that those potentates have any standing among young Muslims need to have their heads examined.

29) Western powers and media are all hypocrites: they still cheer or cover up the war crimes of ISIS and Nusrah in Syria if the affected victims happen to reside in Syrian regime-controlled areas.

30) There should be a categorical end to external support of ALL Syrian rebels and to the Syrian regime by all sides.

31) Finally, why does the media coverage portray these massacres as West-vs-Islam when many of the victims in Paris are likely to be Muslims, and when ISIS in the Middle East kills far more Muslims than non-Muslims, despite the fact that members of the US Congress only see Jews and Christians as victims?

[*Ibn Taymiyyah's (1263-1328) writings are a major source for the wahhabi/salafi movements in Islam, which reject modernity and advocate that society should emulate that of Muhammad and the early believers, as literally described by the Qur'an and the hadith;**See my 3/7/15 post Those Rebels, That Hospital, Our Ambassador & His Wife.]

Saturday, November 14, 2015

"It was more frat house than Parliament House as Tony Abbott and his staff partied into the night in the hours after Malcolm Turnbull deposed him as Prime Minister. At Mr Abbott's insistence, Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds played as junior staffers deliberately poured wine on furniture and cabinet minister Jamie Briggs injured his knee trying to crash tackle the outgoing prime minister." (Raucous antics iced Abbott's blues as suspicions ran wild, Sid Maher, The Australian, 14/11/15)

But then what would you expect from someone who once said, 'We're all Israelis now', and invited Benjamin Netanyahu down under for a visit?

Friday, November 13, 2015

"Two Australian delegations attended the service for the Battle for Beersheba. I was with a group of defence experts who were in Israel to participate in a forum convened by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies. The other delegation of about 50 entrepreneurs, industry representatives and government envoys, led by assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy, was in Israel to seek inspiration for the Turnbull government's innovation agenda." (Better Israeli defence ties will boost our hi-tech industries, The Australian, 10/11/15)

The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA)?

Check out their website: "The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies advances a realist, conservative, and Zionist agenda in the search for security and peace for Israel." (besacenter.org)

You'll also find a video of Bergin's address on homeland security there, with a straight-faced Bergin telling his Israeli audiencethat Israel been "fighting terrorism for a lot longer than Australia has."

Hello? Has he never heard of Menachem Begin?

Begin was the Daddy of all Middle Eastern terrorists!

At least ex-foreign minister Krudd, who cracked that tasteless joke in Jerusalem's King David Hotel in 2010 about Begin redesigning the hotel's interior back in 1946, was alive to the fact. (See my 6/12/11 post The Joke.)

But I guess history and irony and all that sort of stuff just aren't Bergin's thing. He's in Israel for other reasons:

"Our exchange on strategic issues soon demonstrated a whole range of areas where our military forces could learn from one another. These ranged from defence industry co-operation (our army has purchased an Israeli battle management system) to counter-insurgency, urban intelligence gathering, coalition warfighting, countering improvised explosive devices, military education, the use of reservists, airpower developments (both countries are acquiring F-35 joint strike fighters), military procurement processes and maritime security (Israel is developing offshore gas fields). Issues related to counter-terrorism and social resilience were highlighted as common interests of both states." (ibid)

Bergin's obviously the sort of bloke who loves things that go *BANG*, and has decided that, in the *BANG* department, Israel is where it's at. And he wants a slice of that (field-tested on Palestinian guinea pigs) action for Australia.

So what?

Here's the bottom line:

To the extent that Bergin's views and advice are embraced by the Australian government, and defence and security ties with Israel, an ethnocratic, apartheid state, are advanced, we can expect a malign process of creeping Israelisation in this country. This will inevitably be characterised by a slackening of support for the role of the United Nations in international affairs; a deepening contempt for international law and norms; an erosion of basic civil liberties; and rampant Islamophobia.

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Our man, Anthony Bergin, deputy director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI*), in Beersheba (and its so good to see he spelt it correctly!):

"Beersheba is a modern Israeli city and a burgeoning cyber-security hub in the Negev." (Better Israeli defence ties will boost our hi-tech industries, The Australian, 10/11/15)

I don't know about you but BURGEONING CYBER-SECURITY HUB does it for he.

"Sadly, last month it was the scene of a terrorist attack..."

Bloody Negev Bedouin, never happy! Bulldoze their villages and this is all the thanks you get!

"I was recently in the city to attend commemorations for the 98th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba."

Where else, mate?

"The 4th Australian Light Horse took less than an hour to overrun the [Turkish] trenches and enter Beersheba, with 1000 Turkish soldiers taken prisoner..."

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!

"They did what no one, least of all the Turks expected. Some 500 riders charged, short bayonets in hand, because they didn't have swords. The Light Horse... dismounted to fight. Their success was not only due to their courage and daring, but also to their ability to be disruptive and to take risks, the characteristics we need today in our national reform agenda."

Memo to Malcolm: Whip out your short - sorry, mate, in your case, long - *ahem" bayonet and SLASH those penalty rates, CUT those company taxes, and STICK the GST up 'em, OK?

[*"ASPI is an independent, non-partisan think tank that produces expert and timely advice for Australia's strategic and defence leaders." About ASPI, aspi.org.au]

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Have you noticed how, in the mainstream media, Jerusalem's 7th century Haram ash-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) is now almost routinely referred to, in Ziobabble, as the Temple Mount?

By so doing, the MS media is unwittingly - to accord it the benefit of the doubt - aiding and abetting those who are, even now, girding their loins for an unparalleled act of religious cleansing in the city.
You see, whether Zionist fanatics say this...

"It is my dream to see the Israeli flag flying at the Temple Mount. The flag must be raised. I think this is the centre of Jewish sovereignty, the capital of Israel and the holiest place for the Jewish people." - Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely ('It is my dream...', Tom Dolev, jerusalemonline, 9/11/15)

Or this...

"And that is the story taking place today on the Temple Mount. The message heralded by the everlasting nation is drawn in its entirety from the place chosen by G-d. The Temple Mount truly is the bedrock of our existence in the most essential way. The Mount is not just a sentimental site. It is not even a historic site. It is more like a huge power socket that connects to, and has nourished, the Israeli motor for the past 3,000 years." - Former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Moshe Feiglin (It's all because of the Temple Mount, jewishpress.com, 6/11/15)

... Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are being verbally erased, and the Haram ash-Sharif, as a result, reduced to nothing more than a base without a building for a building without a base - just as thePalestinians, for earlier generations of Zionist fanatics, were erased by the slogan a land without a people for a people without a land.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that occupations breed resistance.

In the case of Israel's 48-year-old OCCUPATION, that's where Zioprop comes in.

To divert your attention from the bleeding obvious fact of OCCUPATION.

When it's passive, non-violent resistance, such as that against Israel's land-grabbing Apartheid Wall, the practitioners of Zioprop will spin diverting tales of Israeli innovation or being the first to respond with medical aid to some humanitarian emergency - usually on the other side of the planet.

However, when the pressure of state (military/police) and quasi-state (settler) violence against the occupied mounts; when their hold on hearth and home becomes ever more tenuous; when their sacred sites come under threat; when their hopes and dreams (such as they are in these circumstances) begin to shrivel and die; when they can see no future; in short, when their backs are against the wall, they will, of course, rise up and lash out at their oppressors with whatever weapons are at hand - sticks, stones, knives, vehicles.

What you're seeing is another intifada.

And when it's an intifada, the practitioners of Zioprop also rise up and reach for whatever weapons are at hand.

To divert your attention, as always, from the crimes of the OCCUPATION.

For example:

"Whereas Parramatta was widely interpreted as an act of terrorism underpinned by extremist ideology, a disingenuous web has cloaked and distorted much of the reporting of the attacks on Israelis, notwithstanding the reality that they are motivated by a parallel ideology." (Killings OK but Israel's 'excessive' response condemned, Vic Alhadeff, The Australian, 7/11/15)

Yes, folks, that's Vic Alhadeff, chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, exploiting the murder of the Sydney police employee, Curtis Cheng, by a local dupe of Islamic State, as a stick to beat the OCCUPIED Palestinians, 74 of whom have been gunned down since October 1, the latest being a 72-year-old woman whose husband was murdered by Israeli OCCUPATION forces 30 years before.

Saturday, November 7, 2015

"Muslim Australians experience discrimination and abuse on a daily or regular basis, according to a new report [Freedom from Discrimination] by the Australian Human Rights Commission... Groups said hostile treatment towards Muslim Australians were impinging on people's freedoms... Despite this, the report acknowledged that the Racial Discrimination Act had 'limited' ability to protect Muslim Australians, because it only covered discrimination based on race, colour, ethnic or national origin or immigrant status - not religion. This is different from Jewish Australians, as the Federal Court has found they have a common 'ethnic origin' and are therefore owed protection under the act." (Muslims face abuse, discrimination but act offers 'limited' protection, Judith Ireland/ Beau Donelly, Sydney Morning Herald, 5/11/15)

Australian Jews have a common ethnic origin?

Seriously?

So where does this nonsense come from?

The RDA explains:

"Religious discrimination is not, per se, made unlawful by the RDA. However the term 'ethnic origin' has been interpreted broadly in a number of jurisdictions to include Jewish and Sikh people. The Court in King-Ansell held that Jewish people in New Zealand formed a group with common ethnic origins within the meaning of the Race Relations Act 1971 (NZ). Richardson J stated that: 'a group is identifiable in terms of ethnic origins if it is a segment of the population distinguished from others by a sufficient combination of shared customs, beliefs, traditions and characteristics derived from a common or presumed common past, even if not drawn from what in biological terms is a common racial stock. It is that combination which gives them an historically determined social identity in their own eyes and in the eyes of those outside the group. They have a distinct social identity based not simply on group cohesion and solidarity but also on their belief as to their historical antecedents'." (Chapter 3 The Racial Discrimination Act, humanrights.gov.au)

Check out the highlighted words. This is beyond rubbery...

Can't help wondering whether Richardson J would have written the above if Shlomo Sand (The Invention of the Jewish People, 2009) had been called as an expert witness at the time.

Thursday, November 5, 2015

You're the Sydney Morning Herald's opinion editor, OK? You're after quality analysis on this, that or the other, right? You want to shine a light on, say, Syria, yeah?

Who ya gonna call?

a) An academic expert?
b) A Syrian?
c) A recent visitor to the place?
d) A reader of at least one serious book on Syria?
e) A reader of at least one serious book on the Middle East?
f) A reader of at least one serious book?
g) Derryn Hinch*?

The answer, of course, is g) Derryn Hinch. And you can see why:

"In Washington, London and Canberra, Western leaders have described Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as an evil, power-crazed dictator, guilty of crimes against humanity, who must be overthrown." (The word shame still applies, only this time to Syria, SMH, 3/11/15)

And that's just the opening sentence.

Next edition: Jacqui Lambie on Israel/Palestine.

[*Bio-blurb: "Derryn Hinch is a journalist, editor, author and broadcaster, who is standing for the Senate next election for his Justice Party."]

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

If you want a vision of life in occupied Palestine NOW, imagine an Israeli jackboot stamping on a Palestinian face - forever.

(With apologies to George Orwell)

Zionist daleks in action:

"The video, published Friday by the London-based website Middle East Eye, was filmed by Yazan Ikhlayel on an iPhone after Israeli forces stormed Bethlehem's Aida refugee camp. The video shows an Israeli army jeep driving down one of the camp's main roads, firing tear gas as a message blares over the vehicle's loudspeakers: 'People of Aida refugee camp, we are the occupation army,' one soldier is heard saying in Arabic. 'If you throw stones, we will hit you with gas until you all die. We won't leave any of you alive'." (Israeli soldiers threaten to kill Palestinians with tear gas, teleSURtv.net, 30/10/15)

Zionist intellectual in action:

"Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party, Moshe Feiglin, has called for the use of concentration camps for the 'conquest of the entire Gaza Strip, and annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters.'... In his letter, Feiglin urged Netanyahu to 'turn Gaza into Jaffa, a flourishing city with a minimum number of hostile civilians,' in reference to a Palestinian coastal city that was ethnically cleansed in 1948 and incorporated into present-day Israel. He called for tent encampments where the Palestinian civilian population would be 'concentrated' to be established along the Sinai border and relevant emigration destinations are determined, adding that the supply of electricity and water to the formerly populated areas will be disconnected while they are 'shelled with maximum firepower' in order to destroy the civilian and military infrastructure of Hamas as well as its means of communication and of logistics." (Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Moshe Feiglin's comments come after one of his far-right Knesset colleagues Ayelet Shaked previously called for the mothers of Hamas members to be targeted, worldbulletin.net, 4/8/14)

Monday, November 2, 2015

98 years ago today saw the issue, by the British war cabinet of David Lloyd George (PM) and Lord Balfour (Foreign Secretary), of the worst foreign policy decision ever made by any Western power in modern times.

Dubbed the Balfour Declaration, it reads as follows:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights or political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

At the time, 92% or more of the population of Palestine were Arabs - both Muslim and Christian.

Think of the implications of describing the overwhelming majority of a country as EXISTING NON-JEWISH COMMUNITIES.

Then think about the plight of those EXISTING NON-JEWISH COMMUNITIES today, the majority in exile, and the rest under a 'shoot first, ask no questions later' military occupation or living as barely-tolerated 3rd class citizens in a Jews-first state.

Now ponder this.

When required (for his weekly column in The Australian) to come up with an example of British colonial bastardry in the Middle East during World War I, this is the bestPhilip Adams, one of Australia's leading intellectuals and commentators, renowned for his erudition, humanitarian concern, and avuncular manner, can do:

"Much of the mess in the Middle East is a consequence of colonialism - and the wholly arbitrary designation of nations by bureaucrats from Britain... They'd literally nail a piece of tin on a palm tree and say 'this is Kuwait, the other side's Iraq'." (What is it good for?The Weekend Australian Magazine, 26/9/15)